


Relapse

by itdefiesimagination



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2015-03-21
Packaged: 2018-02-24 22:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2598278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itdefiesimagination/pseuds/itdefiesimagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon's past draws some old ghosts to Roarton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The countryside bled out with incredible speed, the homely brown-golds of Roarton sapping to grey outside of the train windows, like the whole town had caught in the rails of the last car and was dragging behind – wheezing on the blood in its throat, rag doll limbs whirling dangerously, but still present, still following.

Simon watched with his head to the window pane as the village struggled to hold them. His breath fogged up the glass.

“You’re doing it.”

The disciple – or whatever it was he was calling himself now, since he’d royally fucked up the job description – raised an eyebrow. “Doing what?”

“Breathing. You only breathe when you’re worried about something.”

“I'm not worried.”

“Nervous, then.”

“No,” Simon said, clipped and final. “It’s sense memory. I’m always breathing.”

“Maybe you’re always nervous.” The corner of Kieren’s mouth twitched up and, even sitting in the opposite booth, Simon could see a little flicker of pride in his face. 

Or was it cunning?

Because Kieren knew people. He knew them by their quirks and gestures, knew how to comfort and manipulate them. It was an acuity honed not by any sort of malice or arrogance, but by years of wondering: what did people think, beneath the waxy smiles and the flowers set along the edge of his coffin, really think? About the things he chose – and couldn’t choose – to be? About the things he’d done? 

This Simon understood, because he knew the feeling. When everyone’s watching you, sometimes you’ve no choice but to watch back. After a while, you get good.

So he granted Kieren the small observation and turned back to the window. 

“You don’t have to come,” he said after a few minutes of silence, pursing his lips and setting his expression to one of calculated apathy. “There’s a lot to do in the city. Museums and . . . things. I could call – ” 

_No, he couldn’t._

_Recover._ He laughed on an exhale and forced himself to continue. “Sue.” 

_Yes, believable._

“I could call Sue.”

Kieren winced slightly, knowingly, but Simon pressed on. 

“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind the short notice. Or your dad could meet you somewhere, maybe. Or you could go by yourself, if you’re careful. ‘Cause you really should get out, you know – have some fun. More than Roarton can offer you, which, granted, is not hard to come by anywhere, let alone the city. At least the buildings here’ll have multiple stories, right?”

“Simon –” 

“And this should only take a few hours, so we can make a day out of it afterwards, if you want. Catch the 9:15 instead of the 3:30. I mean, it’s pretty easy to get tickets, now that Give Back’s collapsed.” He gestured around their car, as if to supply evidence. “Just gotta talk to the guys like you’re one of ‘em. Be normal. Be boring. They’ll give you anything you want.” 

“Simon –”

“Hey, we could go to this place I know, yeah? Used to be an old tube line, but now it’s got, like, murals and shit painted everywhere. Stuff like that. Stuff you like. Plus, it’s out of the way, so you don’t have to worry about running into anyone.” _So I don’t have to worry about running into anyone._ “Then, there’s these guys I know – these good guys I know who can – ”

“ _Simon!_ ” 

There was a high-pitched squeal as the train came to a sudden halt, and Kieren pitched forward dangerously, hands clutching at the polyester seatback, one boot lodging against the wall. But Simon didn’t move. He sat, straight-backed, making no attempt to steady himself and leaving the boy in free fall. The struggle with gravity was momentary; still, Kieren’s jaw tightened, first resenting the lack of assistance, then resenting himself for wanting it. While he stooped forward to collect some items that had spilled out of his bag during the lurch, silence lay heavily throughout the train car. 

Once everything – contact case, house keys, stray papers, a handful of loose change – had been returned to the bag, Kieren’s eyes flicked up to Simon. He watched the man bore holes through the window. For some reason, the casual goings-on of the train station had him captivated – his gaze lazy-eyed and empty, locked on a family of three who were hauling their luggage behind them, hurrying toward their stop. Slaps of feet on pavement, laughter, and a sharp collection of delighted screams melted into the usual rumblings of the station, all of it filtering through the walls of their car and accentuating the fact that it was deadly quiet inside. 

Kieren stood and covered the small distance between the booths, sat down next to Simon. 

He was aware of the sight they must’ve made: exceedingly formal in their dark suits, uncomfortable, too angular. He imagined the other passengers staring at them in the same way Simon was staring at that living family, the one running to catch their train. Subconsciously, Kieren’s attention drifted to the clear sliding doors separating their car from the rest of the train. _Stop it_. His head snapped forward again.

“Simon?” Kieren began.

“Hm?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Okay.” 

“Do you _want_ me to come with you?” 

There was no hesitation. “Yeah.” 

“Alright.”

Neither spoke as Simon pulled back the sliding door and led them off the train. 

Three blocks away, in a damp little church off of the main boulevard, Iain Monroe was silent, too. 

* * *

“Jemima Walker. Age 20. Five-foot-five, 124 pounds . . . Is that right?”

“Yeah,” Jem glanced up from beneath her fringe, unable to quit fiddling with the arm of her chair. It was the kind of chair you’d find in a school library, wooden legged and covered in the sort of budget fabric that came off in little tufts on your jeans. Jem’s hands strayed to the underside, which was pockmarked with ancient, rubbery lumps – gum. _Ugh._

You’d think they would include something a bit nicer, what with the fee and all. One of those long couches, maybe. Hollywood psychiatry.

“Sexually active?” asked Doctor Russo. His voice was measured, too clinical, daring laughter.

Instead, Jem settled for the more acceptable alternative. “Er, no.”

“But you have a partner?”

“Nah. No, I did but . . . ,” she shrugged, settling back in the chair that should’ve been nicer. 

It was strange being here; she would’ve resented it, if not for the fact that Kieren was due for an appointment every two days. Her sessions were once a week, so she could manage – would have to manage. Still, that didn’t stop the walls from peeling, and it didn't pull down the charts (each detailing an infectious disease, with tiny organs drawn out in primary school colors). 

And the smell was still there: like toothpaste and antiseptic mixed together, spread thin over lab tables. 

It made sense that Dr. Russo should handle psychiatry alongside his traditional medical duties, what with Roarton's population. Plus, after the Rising people had been . . . well, to put it mildly, Kieren wasn’t fond of Russo; though Jem figured that was just Simon’s whole anti-authority vibe working it’s magic. That was always the way, wasn’t it? God, her brother had even taken to kicking a football (rather ungracefully) around the backyard when Rick . . . before Rick . . .

“I see your brother here a lot,” Russo smiled, perching on the edge of his desk, clip-board in hand. His face was warm and practiced, and an Arcade Fire t-shirt peeked out from behind his lab coat. 

_Shit, mate, you’re forty-five_ , thought Jem, before silently chastising herself.

_This is your option. Pull it together. Pay attention. This is you getting help._

She tried her best to return the doctor’s smile. “Yeah, Kieren says you’re cool."

“Okay . . ., ” said Russo. An odd quiet gripped the room until he continued, “Your brother’s – yes – your brother’s cool, too.”

_What the fuck?_

The doctor’s mouth twisted into an awkward sort of grimace – recalibrating, reshaping into that professional smile. His eyes scanned the clip board and his pen dragged for a moment, before lighting on some note halfway down the page.

Jem ground her boots into the tile. Listened to the squeal.

“So, does it cause any problems at home?” Russo cut in, after the boot-squeaking had gone uninterrupted for a few minutes. 

Silence. Then:

“Sorry, what?”

“Well, sometimes having a close family member struggle with PDS – it can make for an interesting household dynamic.”

“Mm, in the beginning it was . . .,” Jem let her mouth fall open, brushing her fringe behind one ear. “Yeah, it was different, I guess. But we handled it. I – I handled it okay.” 

Russo was unconvinced. “And how did you . . . handle it, as you put it?”

“I don’t know. I just did?”

Suddenly – unexpectedly – there was a bite to her words, an anger sitting high in her chest. They always went like this, these talks. 

“Didn’t you, like, discuss this with Kieren, though? It’s more . . . his area, I think,” she began, making a half – hearted attempt to reset the conversation.

“This is about you, Jem.”

“I know, but – ”

“And about Henry Lonsdale.”

_Shit._ Chest constricting, stomach flipping violently, Jem tore her eyes away from Russo’s. Who had told him? Because, sure, it was bound to come up sooner rather than later, it’s why she was here, but each voice rang different in her head -- some louder, some softer than others.

She imagined Kieren, neck craned to receive his dose. _“Oh, by the way, Doctor . . .”_

It probably hadn’t happened like that.

She hoped it hadn’t happened like that.

“Yeah. I . . .,” Jem exhaled and glanced around the room, wondering if it needed saying. “I’m sorry. About that.”

“Oh. Oh, this isn’t the place for that, Ms. Walker,” Russo assured, in a voice so good-natured Jem was almost certain that he was going to lean over from the edge of his desk, ruffle her hair, and tell her to be on her way. _Was it possible for a grown man to giggle?_ She winced.

Russo continued, “Parents and siblings of the Partially Deceased are highly susceptible to psychological – even physical – disorders, especially if the relative in question died under particularly violent and-or emotional circumstances. The, um, _death_ of Mr. Lonsdale may have been a manifestation of these symptoms.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Jem said. And she really hoped she didn’t.

“Has your brother exhibited any manic tendencies since he left the treatment center? Aggression, relapse, et cetera, et cetera?”

“I – no, not really – but –”

“Depressive behavior?

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” Jem tried to speak. Russo didn’t relent.

“And how did you two interact before the time of death? There’s a possibility that any conflicts left unresolved during childhood may have been amplified –”

“Could we stop talking about my brother?!” Jem snapped. 

Russo’s forehead creased with something that might have been sympathy. “Jem, I think you’ll find that understanding your relationship with PDS – and with PDS suffers – may allow you to understand this, well, unfortunate business with Mr. Lonsdale.”

“My brother didn’t kill Henry.”

“Of course. However –” 

“ _I_ killed Henry.”

The reaction was violent and immediate. Russo jolted where he stood, but managed to keep his voice steady. “It’s our job to discourage that kind of thinking, Ms. Walker.” He wavered for a moment and his fingers flexed over the metal tab of his clipboard. There: a small glitch in his calculated exterior. 

“I think you’ll find that this clinic has extensive knowledge of Post Traumatic Stress, as well as its relationship to interfamilial connections with the recently deceased.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with Kieren.”

“As you’ve made clear. But we’re not talking about your brother, Jem. We’re talking about you.”

“Bullshit.” Jem stilled, shocked by her own outburst. “I’m not – I’m not metaphorically killing my brother or something. Look, I’ve read all those pamphlets on it. This. What I have. And that’s not what I’m doing.”

And now, Russo’s smile had gone completely, his lips pressed in a hard line. 

A deep breath, and Jem pressed on, “If you want to talk to Kieren, then you can talk to him. I’m not gonna waste my time here, ‘cause this is about me.”

“There are extraneous factors – ” 

“No. No! Me! I’m the extraneous factor. I am the fucking – the fucking extraneous factor.”

“Ms. Walker!”

“This is about me!” Jem repeated, ignoring the knock at the door. It had begun seconds ago and had escalated to a steady rhythm. 

“It’s about me! And they always talk about him. No one ever wants to talk about me, ‘cept for me. And I am sick – of it. I want to talk. But this is just like it was before.” 

And she remembered: 

_It had been two weeks since the funeral and they’d finally run out of refrigerated meals: handouts – small town condolences packed into glass tubs and foil-wrapped. The saddest fucking lasagna she’d ever had. Jem wouldn’t eat anything with red sauce for the rest of her life._

_But, now, all of the frozen meals were gone, so Sue Walker made dinner that night. Something simple, just watery soup from a can. First, she carried in the bowls. Then came the spoons: one, two, three,_

Four.

_And Sue Walker began to cry. Steve swore and tore himself away from the table so violently its legs creaked, while Jem was left alone – silent, and still clutching her spoon. She wanted to talk._

She remembered. 

Jem stood, blotting tears with the back of her hand, and made sure to avoid Russo’s eyes as she hoisted her bag over her shoulder.

The doctor had gone stiff and his voice was stern. “I’m afraid your session isn’t over yet, Ms. Walker.”

“Yeah, it fuckin’ is.”

Jem bustled past an astonished Shirley, forcing herself down the long, white hallway and out into the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

A light rain was falling by the time they reached the city center. The concrete, with its white wash fading to reveal layer upon layer of old graffiti, dripped steadily. Puddles formed in the shallow dip between the street and the storefronts; most of the buildings were old, and those that weren’t stuck out like sore thumbs. Like glass-fronted, grey-plastered thumbs. Thumbs filled with lonely pairs of eyes, peering out at them . . . 

Alright, maybe not the best simile of his life. Kieren shook the abstraction from his head, slipped his phone from his back pocket, and booted up the home screen. Rain drops smeared the surface and pin-pricked into his contacts. 

“You need directions?” he asked, wiggling the device emphatically in Simon’s direction, while - at the same time - attempting to blink his lenses into place.  


Simon glanced back. (He’d kept up a brisk pace since they’d left the station, managing to stay a few steps ahead. Always.)

“I don’t like the buttons,” he muttered. 

“Yeah, I know you don’t. Why else would you use the pay phone? Only my dad uses the pay phone. And he’s my dad.”

Fast currents of rain water, swirling with soggy bits of paper, and dirt, and trash, were forming along the side of the road, and Simon stepped deftly over them, right into the center of the street. He’d avoided sidewalks with a vengeance both before and after the Rising – since the third or fourth hit had shot his eyes through and mottled his skin. Walking in the middle of the street, you were in control. People couldn’t cross you and they couldn’t slip past. They had to look.

_“You never have a_ normal _explanation for anything, do you?” Kieren had laughed at this admission, amiably knocking shoulders with Simon as they made their way to the bungalow. “It’s always something, like, deep. And important.”_

_The boy fell back a few steps, grinning, chin tipped back. “Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe you’re just . . .”_

_His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper and he slipped his hands from his pockets: each fist curled into one of those cheesy gestures. Rock n’ Roll._  


“A rebel.”

_Simon balked at that, eyes narrowing. “Well, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe you’re just . . ._ a teenager,” _he mimicked – Rock n’ Roll signs and all._

_“Oh my god,” gasped Kieren._

_“What?”_

_“Oh my god, do that again. Do it.”_

_Still stomping along the path, eyes downcast, Simon tugged at one of his jacket sleeves and scowled._

_Kieren grabbed hold of his arm, making escape impossible. “Do iiiiiit.”_

_“No.”_

_“Please?” he grinned. (Stupidly, Simon thought.) “It can be your apology for calling me a teenager.”_

_“You_ are _a teenager.”_

_“Um, Mr. Disciple, how **dare** you?”_

_“I can't believe risked my second life for you,” Simon said with mock-bitterness. He pursed his lips against a smile. “Damn sentiment.”_

_“Damn sentiment,” agreed Kieren as he wove his arm through Simon’s._

Now, Kieren waited in the middle of the street and let the rain track faint, pale streaks down his face. He held out his phone. 

A text – 

**Jem**  
**12:43 PM**  
**russo’s a major dick but thnks for trying x**

– lit the screen. 

Simon saw the little message bubble, didn’t understand, and waved the phone away before reassuring, “I know where we’re going, okay? Been here a lot.”

And he must’ve, judging by the pace they made, weaving down back alleys, skirting the more popular sides of town – secrecy that Kieren might’ve assumed was for his sake, if not for the fact that Simon was wearing his cover-up today, too.

The rain forced the man to keep constant tabs on his skin – to compulsively rub his forehead every few minutes, to even out the false complexion over and over again. A bit of mousse had smeared off onto the collar of his burial suit, and Simon picked at the smudge with a grimace. Still, he didn’t break stride.

“You seeing someone special today?” Kieren huffed. “ ‘Cause you’re walking too fast and you’ve got a _lot_ of that stuff on.”

“Am I not allowed?” The man’s voice filtered back, even through the gale, which had started to whip up around them. There was a true bitterness to his words now, and they made Kieren flinch, made him bite the inside of his cheek. 

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “You’re fine.” Half-apology, half-reassurance. 

“Yeah.”

The pair stopped briefly to watch a woman make her way towards them. Her fleece was zipped up over her mouth, hair tossed around her face by the wind. She gave a curt nod, narrowed her eyes, which were crinkled and chapped at the edges, and slipped into a convenience store. Though the windowpane, they saw her shed the fleece and throw it over a short magazine rack – saw her glance back out into the street before looking away in an instant, eyes fluttering to the farthest corner of the shop. 

Simon hummed at her instinct and a flicker of annoyance lined his forehead. 

“I’m not, by the way,” he said, after a few moments. But when Kieren offered no response, he was forced to clarify, “I’m not . . . seeing anyone special. Trying to avoid that, actually.” 

They both stood, staring into the shop – staring at the woman in the shop who was pretending to stare back. 

“There’s going to be people at the funeral, Simon.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about.”

“But you’re worried about someone? Or, you know, multiple someone’s?” 

“Unfortunately.”

“Plan on telling me?”

“Maybe. If that’s what you want. Not now, though.” 

Kieren nodded, suddenly clueing in to the slight hunch of Simon’s shoulders, the way he kept dabbing at his face, clenching and unclenching his jaw. And he thought that later, after things settled a bit, he might take the man up on that offer he’d made aboard the train. They’d go to one of the cluttered old museums, nestled just off the main road, where Kieren would drag Simon to the farthest gallery, find the most ridiculous, most abstract painting in the whole place, and they’d look at it for an hour straight; they’d just sit, and Simon would laugh because _for fuck’s sake, Kieren, when I spill something I don’t bloody frame it and hang it on my wall_ , and Kieren would smile and pretend to understand the mess of shape and color; they’d sit, and Kieren would use his thumb to work the knots out of Simon’s palm until their hands could relax into one another. They’d sit, and then they’d take the 9:15 back home. 

Later, after things settled a bit.

“Alright,” Kieren said. “But this someone you’re worried about . . .”

He nodded towards the woman in the shop, his mouth pressed into a hard, dimpled smile. “It’s not _her_ is it?”

Simon rolled his eyes. “Definitely not.”

“Well, good. Checking her off my list.” 

They stumbled off, letting themselves laugh – though they knew they were late for church. 

The woman in the convenience store watched them go. And breathed out. 

***

“Your foot is in my space.”

Nina’s fingers pecked steadily at her iPhone. She’d completely forgotten about the first ID Point. (In all honestly, she’d fallen asleep with one cheek smashed up against the passenger window, but the guards had waved the company Nissan through anyway. If you have the right plates, you can get past the initial security check no problem. At the second point, you’ve got to show your face, and it’s got to be the right face. At the third, the wrong face gets you harassed, arrested, and fined.)

Oliver had thwacked the back of Nina’s headrest, waking her, before continuing down what the original Halperin and Weston blueprints deemed the ‘Employee Entrance’: a glorified, high-security driveway.

“Your _foot_ is in my space,” Oliver spit, bracing his shoulders in preparation for the unpaved road.

Nina glanced down to where the heel of her boot wedged into Oliver’s cup holder. It supported her weight as she leaned back against the inside of the car door. _Necessary._ She returned her attention to the iPhone. 

“Your FOOT is in my SPACE.” 

“Jesus, Ollie. Calm your shit, alright? I’m moving it.” 

“Been in this car too bloody long.”

“You’re telling me.”

With the road's final, jolting curve, the complex came into view – its line of black steps and low concrete awning nondescript, like a hospital side entrance. Though, they really did try to avoid using that word around here. _Facility_ , assured the small plaque nailed to the double-doors. _Tested, inspected, approved._

Oliver pulled into his usual parking spot and killed the engine. “Are you doing it or am I?” he whined, dipping his forehead to the top of the steering wheel and peering over at Nina. “I’ve been driving for hours and I can’t feel my arms.” 

“Fine,” the woman glared. “I’ll do it.”

She kept her eyes fixed on Oliver as the trunk clicked open, cursing him silently as she slid out of the passenger seat, iPhone clutched between her teeth. She managed to garble around the mouthful of neon rubber, “But you get the legs.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Simon Monroe and guest.”

The receptionist peered up at Simon, down to flip through his musty catalogue, its cover raised slightly with the outline of the church crest, then back up again.

“Simon Monroe?” he replied, squinting up at the visitors. His voice was almost inaudible and his fingers shook as they adjusted his glasses. They’d been set in motion by age, those fingers, like a newton’s cradle – one metal ball hits and the others lift in response, never ceasing; one wrinkle splits at the corner of your eye, one astigmatism clouds the optic nerve, a slight tremor starts in your left foot and you’re gone. Finished. Everything starts to go. Click. 

_Death comes for the Gatekeeper,_ Simon thought. _Charon ferries once more, this time to stay. Fitting irony, yes? Such is life._

_Guest?!!_ , thought Kieren. 

With a curt nod at Simon, whose head was bowed to avoid scraping the ceiling, the receptionist returned to his hand-written master list. “Here we are,” he said, having finally located the entry he was looking for. “Mr. Monroe.”

“And guest,” Kieren interjected.

“And you’re here for . . . Mr. Monroe, as well.”

“And I’m his guest.” 

The old man fixed him with a look and Kieren shrunk back, shoving his hands into his pockets while Simon rapped his one handful of knuckles against the counter in a soft rhythm. Otherwise, he stood motionless. 

“ _And guest_ ,” the receptionist snapped. He turned to Simon and continued, matter-of-fact, “Your service is being held in the Chapel of St. Mary Catherine. Far hall, first on your right. The United Church of Christ Our Savior offers its sincerest condolences to you . . . and your guest.” A tight smile was all the old man could muster, as he focused on some invisible object just above Kieren’s head. Confused, the boy glanced up, then immediately snapped his head forward again in embarrassment. The old man leered and Kieren’s eyes fluttered down, over to Simon, who didn’t seem to have registered any part of the exchange outside of the bare essentials. Directions. Condolences. Check and check.

“Thank you.” When Simon addressed the old man it was with a genuine gratitude that swelled in Kieren’s throat. 

Luckily, they soon left the small receptionist to preside over his small desk. (Kieren attempted to grimace in his direction as they passed through to the hall, but Simon ushered him forward – one hand insistent on his back.)

Kieren was sure that when parishioners spoke about this hallway it was with a capital ‘H.’ In their heads at least. This was The Hallway of the United Church of Christ, which – of course – ran alongside The Infuriatingly Low-Ceilinged Reception Area of the United Church of Christ, which – in turn – was home to The Semi-Functional Drinking Fountain of the United Church of Christ. 

To be fair, the hallway _was_ less cramped then the reception room, but the draft was still there, and same knotty green carpet ran up and down its length. Their feet sunk as they walked, squeezing rain water and mildew from beneath the carpet’s surface until a line of damp footprints trailed behind them. 

“This is disgusting. Do they really not clean these places?” Kieren cringed, nose wrinkling. “Maybe they think God’s gonna do it for them, or something – ha, a higher power-wash. Get it?”

Silence. Somehow, Simon managed to walk full-tilt and drag his feet at the same time. His fingers scratched along the wall, snagging on old wall paper and brushing against the line of wooden plaques. Each plaque was tacked to the face of a different chapel door, notched with a name and a room number. And there, he felt without seeing: St. Mary Catherine, RM 274. 

He spared a moment to adjust his suit jacket, and Kieren echoed the action, eyeing the man cautiously as a strange panic welled in the center of his chest. _Who all’s in there, Simon? I need to know that you know. And I don’t think you do._

Simon reached for the handle.

Kieren snatched at his wrist. 

“Let’s not,” he said. “Let’s not do it. I – I don’t want to do it. Let’s go.” 

And it wasn’t a lie, exactly. True, he would’ve rather been just about anywhere else, and, true, the prospect of another funeral so soon (let alone _this_ funeral) turned his stomach, but he could do this. Simon, now, he wasn’t so sure. This was for him.

“Take me somewhere?” Kieren offered. 

Breathing out at the distraction, Simon turned to him, with one hand still clasping the handle, shoulders lax. The smile he gave might have been that mask again – the holier-than-thou, the Disciple, the welcome-and-blessed-be-that-you-have-seen-the-err-of-your-ways smile. More likely, though, it was fatigue forcing up the corners of his mouth and distorting. Nothing more.

“Where do you want to go?” Simon asked gently.

Kieren shrugged, hands in pockets. “No idea. Surprise me.”

“Fine.”

A grin, a deep breath, and Simon pulled the chapel door open.

***

The wake would begin at ten, which left a good twenty minutes where guests were expected mingle, or admire the chapel, or put on some pretense of mourning – pretenses which were abandoned the moment Simon decided not to run. The burst of energy he’d summoned to simply enter the room had left him; now, he hung toward the back wall, repelled by the pairs and pairs of eyes that sized him up, gored through him with varying shades of contempt. These eyes sat, heavy lidded, behind veils and beneath black hats. There were no tears.

It was unexpected – the number of people milling about, not yet consigned to the pews. Their conversations melted together into a one great, indecipherable mass that reminded Kieren of one of those animated scribble-clouds you sometimes saw in cartoons: stretching, and contracting, and buzzing over a character’s head when they got angry. The collective murmur weighed heavily around the room, stirring little ripples in the baptismal pool.

“Who are they?” Kieren hissed, leaning toward Simon, though he made sure to keep his eyes fixed straight out into the crowd. A few people were bold enough to stare back, but most blinked the eye contact away and – lips twitching – launched into discussion with another guest. 

Simon’s name began to filter from the crowd.

“Who are all these people?” the boy asked again. _And here I was worried the place would be empty,_ he nearly added, then though better of it.

“Um, friends, some of ‘em. I think. An aunt –” Simon pointed to a woman who had already seated herself in one of the pews. She wore a dark grey shawl, pulled tight around her shoulders and threaded through with tiny, dull beads that scalloped her throat. Cragged lines bracketed her mouth, despite the fact that she was neither smiling nor frowning: sad neutrality. Hard-faced.

There must have been something lodged beneath the woman’s fingernail, because it concerned her more than any of the funeral proceedings. More than the guests; more than the priest, who was milling at his pulpit, now pausing from his arrangement of incense and other sacred items long enough to smooth down his robes; more than the pews, whose cracked wooden seats tilted inward toward the isle’s vanishing point; far more than the black lacquer coffin centered at the head of that point. That she was avoiding. Kieren could tell.

Wait – _an_ aunt?

“You mean _your_ aunt?” 

“I suppose,” Simon shrugged, noncommittal. “There’s another one here somewhere. And an uncle.” 

The imaginary force that had trapped Simon along the back wall was beginning to relinquish its hold. He allowed his body to relax into the room. “As for everyone else here,” he said, “couldn’t tell you. Don’t know ‘em. Don’t think they’re here for him, though. Or for me.” 

Kieren gave a soft affirmation, but had decency enough not to inquire further. Because – 

***

_Earlier:_

_The bungalow had a small, off-kilter mailbox out front. The postman knew it was there, because sweat dotted the thick crease of his chin whenever he walked past it. He would peek quickly into his bag, find it empty, and project a silent thanks to the universe, or to god, or to whomever._

_Amy had known it was there, because she’d stumbled home one night, blissed out on white lightening and sense memory, singing under her breath – some amazingly bad pop song that she’d found on Kieren’s phone. (“Amy, that’s **mine** – that’s my phone, Amy. Give it back!” “OH MY GOD, it’s in your Most Played. Kieren Walker gone all maaainstream. Never thought I’d live to see this day. Guess I didn’t really, but them’s the breaks.” “AMY!”) Blinded by alcohol and contentment, she’d tripped straight into that mailbox. She spent the next week insisting that her rib was bruised and that it hurt like hell, though it couldn’t possibly. Every few minutes, she made Simon half-carry, half-drag her to the kitchen and back again. (“Yes, I need a glass of water. Why wouldn’t I? How DARE you say that to me, Mr. Monroe? How DARE you? Denying a girl her basic human needs.Shameful. Kieren will hear of this.”)_

_And Simon knew that the mailbox was there because he checked it every day and, every day, he faced an empty slot, nodded sharply, and pulled the tab closed. Sometimes Kieren was with him, and sometimes he wasn’t, but it was assumed that the ritual would continue unabated until Simon left that bungalow, and left Roarton with it (dubiously existent god forbid)._

_So the letter was a surprise._

_“Who . . . ?” Kieren squinted down at the envelope, which Simon fished from the mailbox, now turned over and over in his hands, searching for some clue as to its sender._

_It was morning, and cold sunlight glinted off the government seal on the lip of the envelope. It flashed, and Simon stared – white eyes unfocused and unblinking, half-closed against the glare._

_The man opened his mouth, closed it tight. Then, face greying:_

_“I’ve gotta go.”_

_He pushed his shoulders back, setting them into a hard line, before scanning up and down the street for something that he wouldn’t find because it didn’t exist. “Sorry,” he clipped. An afterthought._

_“What? What’s up?” Kieren frowned._

_“Nothing. I have to go inside.”_

_The boy contemplated his options, worrying frays into the sleeves of his hoodie for a few tense seconds, then leapt head first, “Why?”_

_“Kieren.”_

_“No, tell me.”_

_“I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?” Simon’s words had bite to them and the bridge of his nose creased. By some phantom motion, the letter found its way into his pocket – its temporary absence sapping some of the bitterness from him. He corrected with a sigh, “Tonight, I’ll see you. Okay? Going now.”_

_An irrational fear twisted in Kieren’s stomach. “Fine, then. I’m coming in.”_

_“You’re not.”_

_“I am.”_

_A small scuffle on the path leading up to the door – Kieren pushing insistently past Simon and straight through to the front hallway; Simon rocking back on his heels with an ‘oh, Jesus Christ.’_

_“Well, come on then,” the boy called, out of sight – he’d already found his way to the kitchen. “You said you wanted to come in. Come in.”_

_He heard Simon groan, followed by the rattle of the screen door as it was wrenched open – the clatter as it shut. “What’s wrong with you?”_

_“What’s wrong with **you**?” Kieren said in place of: I want to know. I want to know about you. I don’t like being deceived. I don’t like being deceived by you. I’m worried. I’m worried about you. Please let me **come in**._

_By now, the man had rounded the corner into the kitchen. Kieren watched him patrol slowly around it’s perimeter, watched him toy with the some of the pots and pans he didn’t need, watched as he found things – unnecessary, idle things – to do with his hands, until, eyes closed, mouth taught, Simon shook his head. “Fine,” he said. “Fine. Shit.” He ripped the letter from his coat pocket._

_The seal tore after some fumbling._

_**Mr. Simon Monroe:**_

_**We are writing to instruct you to make the following revision(s) to the attached policy. There has been a change in a primary beneficiary of the Monroe estate.**_

_**Deceased: Iain Monroe, 23 October 2014 – Cardiac arrest. Medical assistance provided by: St. Xavier’s Emergency Clinic. In the absence of a will, all assets are repossessed by children of legal age. A list of these assets is provided.**_

_**Please contact the address given above if you have any questions or need additional information.**_

_**Please send a confirmation letter and, if necessary, a form to make this change.**_

_**Sincerely –**_

_Simon stopped reading, because it was a lie. Not the legal jargon – he’d know what the letter was going to say before he’d opened it, and his stomach had dropped then. Outside on the path, he had processed all instinctive emotion. No, it was a lie, because none of this was **sincere,** and tacking one word onto the end of some government approved, copy-pasted form wasn’t going to change that. For all of his practiced apathy, this was what made him angry. That, and the fact that his father hadn’t even had the good grace to write up a fucking will. Would’ve taken a few minutes. Would’ve saved a god damn lot of trouble._

_“What does it say?” Kieren’s voice floated outside of him, couldn’t quite fit through his ears, satisfied itself with knocking the outside of his skull._

_Simon didn’t answer, because – for some reason – he couldn’t. Maybe Amy had been right about the water. About basic needs. His throat scratched dry, constricted; so he shook his head, closed his eyes, folded the letter back into its envelope and tossed it into the sink._

_“What are you – ”_

_After a moment of sputtering, the faucet sprang to life. Pieces of the letter stuck to the side of the sink, others collected around the drain, tacked up white and soggy. The font ran and smeared to a pale grey. Every word bled. Indecipherable._

_“I don’t want up any of his fucking stuff,” Simon spit, and Kieren’s eyes softened, the half-explanation leading way to half-realization. “I don’t want any of it. And, you know, if I did, I’d have it already because it was **mine**. I don’t want any of it.”_

_“Okay.” Kieren straightened and moved to turn off the faucet, where some of the water sprayed up and onto his face. He jerked a hand to smooth his skin, before remembering that he hadn’t put cover-up on this morning. Hadn’t needed it. “Okay.”_

_And he put his arms around Simon’s neck, held him close enough – Simon thought – to feel the dryness in his throat._

_Tell me everything, Kieren imagined his mouth moving. But instead:_

_“Do you still want me to leave?”_

_“No.”_

*** 

The wake began two minutes past ten. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this so late - I'm supposed to be writing a research paper. Supposed to be. 
> 
> Supposed to be.

Jem covered the distance between the clinic and the Walker house faster than she ever had before, and it wasn’t because of the cold. She fumed over the main road, past the Legion, up their little street, which stretched in the shade of an early evening, painted in by the overcast sky; entering through the garage, she stomped into the family room, where Sue Walker was laid up over the coffee table, working her way through a spread of bills.

Jem caught her breath, before:

“You seen Kieren? He’s not texting me back.”

Sue glanced up, pushed a thick pair of reading glasses higher on her nose. “Oh, he’s out, love, sorry. He and Simon were going to the city today.” She smiled and shuffled her stack of papers until its edges aligned. 

Jem blinked incredulously, eyes blown. “You didn’t let him, though. You didn’t _actually_ let him go. Mum?” With that, Jem Walker saw the last of her mother’s common sense set fire and float away, ash on the wind. She waved it off – a Viking burial. Now, _rise_ , abso-fucking-lute insanity. 

Sure, Jem had been there when Kieren had broached the subject. Later, at the dinner table, the explanation was a quiet one and it shook its way out of the boy’s mouth, with Simon nodding along in silent accompaniment . But, first, she’d heard the pair talking – arguing? – holed up in the Walker’s tiny kitchen. They stood close to conserve volume, Simon’s back to the row of cabinets, Kieren pacing up and down the length of the gallery; still, the boy’s voice cut.

_“It’s fine. It’s fine – they’re gonna let me go.”_

_“Still have to ask ‘em.”_

_“Why?!” Kieren said, a little too loudly. He clapped a hand over his mouth and Simon stiffened, glancing toward the dining room. His fingers squeezed the countertop until the knuckles paled white._

_Head bowed slightly, like a dog caught chewing something it shouldn’t, Kieren stopped pacing and corrected to a harsh whisper. “Why?”_

_“Because they trust you.”_

_“Well that’s good, isn’t it? So what does it matter if I go, then?”_

_“They don’t trust **me** , Kieren. And if anything happens, I’m the one who’s gonna be held responsible. Not that it will, but if it does . . . they’ll blame me, and I’ll blame myself. So you can’t be running off. Besides, it’s different in the city. There’ve been some – disturbances, recently.”_

_Neither felt comfortable broaching the subject of where Simon got his (seemingly infinite) supply of information._

_Television, Simon had once lied to Kieren._

_Television, Kieren lied to himself._

_Simon was always quick to cement holes where questions might pool up, might spill over; so he warned, “I don’t mean Roarton disturbances. Real disturbances.”_

_A pitchless buzz sounded in Kieren’s ears; Simon couldn’t hear it, but he immediately regretted. Regretted what he’d said, and coming here for dinner, and being born and reborn at all, as he always did whenever he lit a spark like this. With Kieren, it was almost always an accidental fire, one Simon set in passing with a word too sharp because he’d forgotten to file it down. The word would spark like flint around Kieren’s skull, and Simon would watch him burn, would watch his artificially dark eyes glass over, until everything inside of him cooled and hardened grey. Real disturbance: the boy had known it. He showed it now._

_You are real, Simon didn’t say. And I can see you. And I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it._

_Outside of his own head, he never bothered with an apology for slips like this. It would’ve stoked Kieren’s quick-flare, quick-fade annoyance into something far more profound, because there was a blatant self-interest in forgiveness too often begged: build the flame, then box it in; douse it; pretend it never existed._

_But Kieren did exist. He existed like he had something to prove. He existed quietly, then loud, and with a buried disillusionment – a malcontentment, white-sheeted and dusty, hiding in dark rooms with broken locks, just beneath his skin. Simon didn’t know what the boy and his many doors were waiting for, exactly, but an accidental slight wouldn’t open them. Bow their middles, maybe, creak at them, but they were so long unopened that wax was beginning to yellow around their edges. Closed tight. So he spared the apology._

_And Kieren chose to forget. “S’my choice to go,” he said. The words were dirt spread over embers. “But if you tell me not to, I might listen.”_

_“That’s – not what I’m trying to say. Ask your parents.”_

_“Fine.” Defeat and softness and youth – Simon’s face slipped at that._

_Jem’s slipped, too. She could feel her brother’s unease from where she stood, caught between the mudroom door and the kitchen._

_It took another long silence for her to find mercy._

_“DINNER, losers! Time to not-eat,” she called._

_Their heads snapped toward her, alarmed, and Kieren stepped away from Simon, more out of habit than necessity._

_“S’all right,” shrugged Jem, making her way through to the dining room. “Least you’re not fucking.”_

_“Jem!”choked Kieren._

_“Well you’re not!”_

_Simon bowed his head and bit back a smile, meeting Jem’s eyes as if to thank her for the distraction. Kieren, meanwhile, made a pale-faced and elaborate display of gathering forks._

_“Only need three, little bro.”_

_“Shut **up** , Jem!”_

_“Oi, testy . . . it’s 6:30, by the way,” she said, nodding to the pair. “I was at school. You two are late.”_

_There was a silvery rattle as Kieren slammed the drawer closed. “Shit, I have to –”_

_And he shuttled out of the kitchen, with Simon quickly tailing behind. Jem smiled, shook her head, and followed._

That was three days ago. 

Now, it seemed that Sue Walker had sent her son off to his second death, and here she was disguising it with semantics. “Your father and I thought it would be good for Kieren to get some fresh air.”

“Why didn’t you tell him to go stand in the middle of traffic, then? Would’ve been less dangerous!”

“Jemima!” 

“Mum!

“Your brother’s twenty-three and he can handle himself,” Sue assured. 

“He’s eighteen and he’s gonna get himself _shot_!” 

“Jem – ”

The girl ignored the way her mother’s lips curled in and how her face weathered in fear, instead continuing, “Other people aren’t like you and Dad. Even in the city. Especially in the city. They’re burning things and killing people, and they think it’s right, what they’re doing. Hatin’ people, because they don’t know ‘em. And they’re scared. ” 

"Jem . . .," Sue's voice softened, and the lines around her eyes with it. "Jem, what happened today?"

Jem groaned ( _For fuck's sake, listen!_ ) and was halfway out of the room, bolting foggy-eyed to her room, when Sue realized.

"Did the doctor say something, Jem?"

 _Yes._ "No. No, I just --," And when Jem finally hit the stairs, she couldn't keep the wobble from her voice. "I just wanted to talk to Kieren. I'll . . . text him again." 

She left her mother staring down blankly, with an open mouth and an orderly stack of bills. The door slammed behind her, and Jem cried in her room like a _teenager_ , but she supposed she deserved it.


	5. Chapter 5

With a pen in hand and a body slung over her shoulder, Nina groaned her way to the check-in desk. She scribbled her name into the time table, grimacing, slumping against the dead weight, when a pale arm slipped away from the rest of the body – dropped onto desk with a dull thud. Nina stared at the arm for a moment, before turning a concerned eye (and a wholeheartedly unconvincing smile) to the receptionist, who it seemed had neither noticed nor cared that a bit of rotted flesh had smeared its way across her workspace. The woman stared back at Nina, worried a piece of gum on her back teeth, and made to pull the sign-in book out from under the limb. 

“ _Ollie,_ ” Nina hissed, false smile still intact, eye contact with the receptionist maintained. 

Oliver’s head jerked up from the sign-in sheet. “What?” 

“Get the – thing.” 

“Hm?”

Nina nodded toward the arm. “Just . . . could you get that, please?” 

“Wait, just a sec . . . is it nine-fifteen or nine-thirty right now? I’m supposed to be signed in for earlies.” 

“ _Get the bloody arm off the bloody desk, Ollie._ ”

“Oh.” At that, face paling, Oliver sprung to action. “Oh, here. Let me just –” He lifted the arm gingerly between his index finger and thumb, giving it a look that was equal parts bemusement and terror before tucking it back to the side of the body with a dainty pat. Nina grunted at the extra weight. A greasy, grey-white stain had rubbed off onto her suit sleeve and she frowned at it.

“Healthcare doesn’t even begin to cover this,” she said, hitching the corpse up higher on her shoulder.” 

“. . . Don’t even give me healthcare here,” the receptionist returned, unprompted. She shrugged, “Don’t get no vacation days, neither.”

“ . . . .” 

Nina titled her head, eyes narrowing, because a string of dry, dead hair had just threaded its way into her mouth and the salary of some pseudo-intern didn’t really register on today’s radar. “Oh, I’m . . . sorry?”

“Nah. S’okay.” 

“ . . . .”

The wet squeak of chewing gum continued. 

“Well . . .,” Nina forced another smile, though she knew that – by this point – her face had contorted itself into something that would probably threaten the casual observer. It certainly threatened Oliver. She swallowed hard and continued: “Well, you have a lovely day, then.”

“M’kay.” Still more chewing. “You both for Room 1116?”

“Yep,” Oliver smiled his usual, misplaced smile. “The big eleven-sixteen.”

“M’kay.” 

The door leading off from the main reception area was fixed with a little keypad, which buzzed and gave a sharp, red, three-flicker signal. Somewhere deep within the door’s iron mechanisms, a deadbolt clicked open. 

***

“I see we have some guests from outside parish boundaries,” the priest began. “So, welcome. I regret that our first meeting should come in light of such tragic circumstance, but it is, of course, the Lord’s Way: for He that giveth, taketh away just as easily.”

Kieren realized then that he and Simon should’ve chosen a pew farther from the pulpit – though he could hear the footsteps of other parishoners, destined for other wakes, through the back wall as it was. He was certain that everyone, pastor included, could hear Simon laughing breathily through his nose, as that sort of thing travelled quickly in church. Of this he was certain. It was just one of those things you pick up the first time your parents drag you to Christmas Eve mass, like the lukewarm Catholics they are . . .

Were.

Kieren had spent that service deliberately misremembering hymns, while Jem hung on his words, giggled into the crook of her arm just as any ten-year-old worth her salt should do (at least, his parents had scolded, she had the excuse of being the youngest.)

He’d given Sue and Steve an empty apology then, but realized now the delicate promise being kept all around him, balanced on solemn needlepoint. Everyone in this chapel agreed, if only for an hour or so, that God existed, that He was good, and that this room was a place for silence and reflection. It didn’t matter who truly believed. Those who did had it easy; those who didn’t kept it to themselves. Mostly.

One was laughing. 

“ _Don’t._ ” Kieren jabbed Simon’s foot with his own. 

Luckily, the pastor didn’t notice. At the very least, he had determination enough to pretend not to. There were beads of sweat on the chubby crown of his head and his robes hung high on spindly ankles – a rather unwelcome observation, and one that forced Kieren to wonder if God was judging him for judging someone else’s ankles. Probably not, but if there was any place to be paranoid, it was here. 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the pastor began, with a voice too big for his body. “I would first like to share with you a parable – if I may – wherein a man finds himself lost in a desert.”

Simon's forehead furrowed, and he shifted forward in his seat.

“This man walks for three days before he calls to God, before he says, ‘Oh, Father, you have forsaken me here. Of food, water, and shelter: I have none. Oh, Father, you have blinded these eyes of mine with a heat they cannot bear, and you have turned my bones back to sand, Oh, Father. Father, you have left me for dead, for I am but a Man in No Man’s Land.’ 

“This he calls to God, but God does not answer. So, this man, he tries a second time, though now his tongue hangs so dry that he cannot speak but a few words. He uses them to call His name: ‘Oh, Father, you have left me alone and I must surely die for lack of company. For I am but a Man in No Man’s Land.’ Now, this, God hears, as He Himself knows great loneliness in the kingdom of Heaven. Material comforts - food, and water, and shelter – heed Him no gains, and every so often He forgets that man is not immoral as He and so needs such pitiful sustenance. But He never forgets loneliness.” 

“So He answers the man, who, with the weight of God’s words on his shoulders, falls to his knees, and they are paper-thin with heat, and they tear, and there is blood on the sand; still, the man abandons all thought of pain and turns his ear to the Word of God, which echoes loud over the dunes: ‘Now you feel as I do,’ God says. ‘Alone, without food, or drink, or shelter. But where your mortal soul falters, the Divine thrives. Alone, I am omnipotent. Alone, thou hath no power. And a powerless man is useless to me.”

“Jesus, _this_ is useless to me,” Simon muttered. He laughed when Kieren kicked him a second time, though he clocked the seriousness in the boy’s face. 

There, he read: _Simon, what is **wrong** with you?_ And he wasn't sure if he could answer.

“Of course,” continued the pastor, sotto voice, “the man fears. He fears disappointing his God, and he fears his own body as the heat begins to take control of it. But then, on one gold hill, he sees a movement that is neither the wind nor shadows shifting over the ground. There – two forms: both small and lithe, both with human limbs and burnt-glass eyes; one a woman, the other a child. The man is overjoyed, for these figures hold mortal shape, and they walk to him and embrace him as they would a father or friend. They take him, and he takes them, by the hand.”

“God is silent, as the three walk out of the desert. Night falls deep blue over the sand, and their feet sift, cold, across the expanse, but eventually they reach the edge of civilization – from whence the man was born. Here live his parents, and his friends, and his true family, and there is warmth and cool and food and drink and shelter, all in moderation. The man rejoices, making to step over the city threshold, but when he looks back to these creatures of flesh and blood and sand, they are nowhere to be found. Instead, he is met with a dark horizon. Stars light before him and the city shines orange at his back; he looks to the stones below – sees the sand mortared in the cracks, remembers the sand crusting his mouth and eyes, and he begins to weep.”

“He beckons God a third and final time to say, ‘Oh Father, Father, you told of loneliness and you had cured me of it. Yet, I feel it stronger now than ever. Even here, in the place I called home, I feel it. Why have you cursed me, Father? Why have you taken away that which you so readily gave? Why have you taken them?”

“‘Them?’ God bellows. ‘You never had _them_. You had me, and that which I made for you, to guide you through the desert. They served such a purpose. Now, they are dust. And now, perhaps, in your solitude, you will feel as I feel. A Man in a No Man’s land.’”

The pastor’s face settled to doughy contentment, which Kieren assumed meant that he’d finished his . . . whatever that was. 

Simon seemed to know – elbows on his knees, the heels of his hands pressed to his temples: incredulous. 

“Well, that was - hilarious,” he exhaled. 

“Really? I thought it was sort of . . . weird.”

“No,” Simon said, his voice threaded through with bitter amusement. “No, it’s just that it – that parable – it’s not in any bible I’ve ever read.”

“So, what? He made it up?” Kieren’s eyes flicked to the pastor, who had stooped to collect a large, leather bound tome from one of shelves below his alter and was now leafing through the pages.

Simon lifted one hand from the side of his head to make a noncommittal gesture. “I guess that depends on how much of this stuff you believe to be true in the first place, but for our purposes, yes, I’d say he made it up.” 

“Why?”

“He saw me come in.”

“I don’t - _Simon!_ ”

The man was _waving_ , with both hands in the air and a broad smile on his face. 

“Simon, what the _hell_?” Kieren grabbed at one of his arms, tried to pull it down, but it was too late, because:

“Hey there, Father!”

The pastor’s head snapped up and soured; he pinpointed the source of the distraction, closed his mouth tight, and wordlessly acknowledged the face he’d been avoiding since the beginning of the service. The rest of the guests followed suit, and Kieren realized that they’d been waiting for this. This was why there’d been so little commotion when he and Simon had first arrived. They had been waiting for something bigger. 

“Hey, just when you thought you’d gotten rid of me, right?” said Simon, putting his arms out as much for dramatic emphasis as to stave off Kieren, who half-muttered a string of discouragements, one hand clawed into Simon’s suit sleeve.

A glance down at the boy and Simon’s eyelids flickered. There was an embarrassment written in the pull of his jaw, an earnest _please don’t do this here_ crinkling between his eyes that almost forced Simon back into his seat. 

But the pastor flinched, and Simon noticed. More than that. He stowed the image away, promised himself he’d think of it later, some nighttime when his head was winding in on itself again, and the drugs still weren’t working, and Kieren had gone home. It would bring him to life as it did now. 

“Remember me? Anyone?” He cast his gaze around the room. “Yes? No? Jesus, you’re all so quiet. Come on, I know you remember.” 

He shook his arm away from Kieren’s grip, a slight pang landing between his ribs as he watched the boy slump into the pew. Suddenly, Kieren was the only person in the room whose eyes were downcast – the only person in the room who wasn’t looking at him, and much as Simon hadn’t expected any solidarity in this, he felt the absence in the pit of his stomach. 

There was anger, too, and it was cruel.

“Aunt Aideen, I know you remember me. Come on, please.” The pleasantry was more accusation than plea. Making use of his newfound freedom, Simon shuffled out of the pew and into the aisle, to prowl toward a woman sitting in the third row – the one who before had been so interested in her fingernails. She stared down at them now, hands crossed in her lap.

Simon stood over her, prompting, “Come on, I stayed at your house once, when I was a kid. Three months, I stayed there and you don’t remember me? Come _on_.”

Kieren’s head was in his hands. 

Simon’s heart was in his mouth, and he wasn’t sure how it had gotten there.

“Please.” He meant his words to be sharp, and they were. “I liked you, Aideen. I liked you. Am I, what, _sand_ to you too now? Whatever the hell that means. Stupid, really. I’ve could’ve come up with something better, faster.”

The guests were a tableaux of stone faces, frozen in their seats, with the pastor at their forefront. He looked down from his pulpit, glowered over the black coffin, and remembered this boy as he demanded to be remembered: sickly, and grey, and full to the brim with a righteous anger. 

“Unfortunately, Father, some of us have actually read the bible. And, unfortunately, some of us have whipped up some on-the-spot sermons of our own, so we can tell when we’re being lied to. Quick serve, just add a fuckin’ metaphor.”

“Mr. Monroe,” the pastor cut. “I understand that you feel . . . you have some sort of authority here, but I’m – I – we’re afraid we can’t allow you to continue.” 

Simon titled his head. Waited for the rest.

“W-we all miss you very much. And we felt your loss as we feel this one.”

More.

“And we offer our condolences.”

More. 

“But we would like to continue this ceremony in some semblance of peace.”

There: the admission. 

Simon surveyed the room again, forced everyone to look at him, to remember every part of Iain Monroe, and what he had done, and what he had made, before acknowledging the coffin for the first time that afternoon. “Alright, then - bye, Dad!”

Tipping his head toward the pastor, “Father.”

He left Kieren alone to scramble after him, head low, hands deep in his pockets as if his posture alone might serve as an apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how I feel about this. Hmmmmm.


	6. Chapter 6

The ceilings were low, the rooms stifling, and everything was for sale. How the place managed to maintain its lease, let alone call itself a museum, Kieren had no idea; still, it was nice to be out of the rain – free of that selective chill, stiffening mostly in his fingers and toes.

Also nice was the fact that the cramped quarters forced Simon down onto the bench at the far corner of the room. Foot bouncing where it rested on his knee, hunched, arms crossed, he watched Kieren, and Kieren pretended not to watch back. Pretended to search the art – a minimalist piece, three green stripes scratched across the canvas face – for a meaning it didn’t have. Pretended, put his fingers up to the frame. Pretended that he hadn’t had to chase Simon three blocks (at a measured half-run, to save face), before finally catching up – grabbing hard at the Simon’s elbow. Pretended that Simon hadn’t stumbled a bit at the contact, hadn’t turned as though surprised at having been followed at all. Pretended that he hadn’t been flooded with prickly, loud outrage when Simon opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Pretended he’d asked _why did you do this?_ and not _why did you do this **to me**?_

Pretended none of it had happened, and that they were here because they wanted to be, not because there was half an hour before the next train. 

Simon shifted at the corner of Kieren’s vision, back straightening, old dress shoes squeaking back and forth restlessly.

“I knew him, that priest. Back when I was a kid.”

“Yeah. Got that impression.”

A surprised noise caught in the back of Simon’s throat and he blinked rapidly, as though alarmed that even the most basic of inferences about his first life could be made without his express permission. 

He disguised his discomfort with a short laugh – one that whistled through his teeth. “Always hated me. I used to – um – I used to . . . ,” he trailed off, gesturing to jog his memory, “stick gum in Ecclesiastes. Didn’t even chew gum, normally, but I’d always put a whole lot of it in my mouth before the service, just so I had something to spit out.”

Kieren dropped his hand from the frame, tilted his head a bit, but kept his back turned against Simon’s corner. 

“Made sure Father Gregory wasn’t looking, ‘cause I wanted him to find it later, so it would string out when he was checking the books,” Simon continued, with Kieren’s silence seeming to spur him on, to hike the cost. So he quietly paid up. “Because, for some reason, I thought it’d make him angrier that way. And I already assumed I was going to Hell, so might as well have some fun with it, right?” 

The confession lifted Kieren’s head and pulled his eyebrows from furrowed irritation to soft concern, just as Simon knew it would. 

When the boy gave in, it was gentle. “. . . Is that why you had the funeral here?”

Simon tilted his head. Through the tense silence, rain pattered against the walls and windows; water stains inked the ceiling. 

“I mean, you – your family,” Kieren explained. “You didn’t grow up here, so you must’ve been following the pastor.” 

“Yes, well . . . you can imagine, I didn’t have much to do with any of this. But I assume there was some provision in the will insisting that Father Gregory preside. Spared me a trip back home, though, didn’t it?” 

Simon shrugged; Kieren made a bitter sound – not quite bright enough to be laugh.

Both knew that something had to break in order for the conversation to progress beyond this strained give-take. 

“I don’t,” Simon began, but he bowed his head, rolling his eyes at himself until Kieren’s expression (eyes dark and wide and sad, mouth parted gently) forced him to continue. “I don’t like being . . . erased like that. Not sure if that’s the word I’m looking for, exactly, but I know that I don’t like it. I _didn’t_ like it, not in front of all those people. And it’s been happening for a very long time, and I should stop thinking about it, but I can’t. I can’t, because I still remember those people, and I want them to remember me. And when they remember, I want everything to be the right way round. Even if it’s the bad stuff they’re remembering. I want it to be my bad stuff, not . . . theirs. I just – could see him making me into something I wasn’t. Does that make sense?” 

“It’s fine. That’s normal.” Guilt knotted in Kieren’s chest then, and it probably would’ve welled in his eyes, had it been possible. But it wasn’t, so it didn’t, and for once he was grateful. 

But, still, his voice tightened when he spoke, because: “Simon, I should’ve said something – ”

Simon cut him off, standing from the bench. “It’s fine. That’s . . . normal, too.” 

“But I just sat there, and I should've –”

“And I _shouldn’t_ have.” He feel silent, shook his head. “You gotta stop telling yourself things like that, Kieren,” he insisted, tapping at his temple for emphasis. “Or you’ll start to believe ‘em. Messes with your head . . . kinda like _this_ thing.”

The man narrowed his eyes and crossed to Kieren – who was, at that moment, mulling over what he thought must be one of the nicest things anyone had ever said to him, though he had no idea _why_ he thought this. 

“Who buys this stuff?” Simon craned his neck toward the green-streak painting, his misplaced outrage an unsubtle attempt to detract from the fact that he’d just admitted rather a lot about himself in rather a short amount of time. “No, who _makes_ this stuff?” 

“Well, me, for one.”

“At least yours makes sense.” 

“At least,” Kieren squinted at the little brass name plate fixed below the painting. “ _Thomas Escherton_ didn’t stick his gum in Ecclesiastes.” 

“Okay, first off, there’s no proof that he didn’t, ‘cause you don’t know him. And second, I told you that in confidence,” Simon retorted. 

“I was unaware on both counts.”

“Then I’m taking you home before this gets out of hand.”

“Fine, then.” 

Both smiled, and were glad for it. 

***

With the funeral lodged somewhere in the backs of their minds – a somewhere too far to dream about, but close enough to be remembered when need be – Simon and Kieren boarded the 3:30 train back to Roarton. 

Another ticket was bought and another man slipped past the tram doors. He wondered where Simon had found the kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is such a short chapter, I apologize. *shout from the back of the room* LAME.


	7. Chapter 7

2010 was a junkyard year, with the chain link pillars of pseudo-science (towering, white coat capitalists through whom money could be fed and seen again – untouchable – on the other side) making all of their mistakes at once. Some tossed great stacks of irrelevant case studies, unbound and unpublished, onto the scrap heap; others flushed away liters of chemical cocktail – bubbling, ineffective, and trembling with ethical ripples. 

Everyone worked.

 _Nothing_ worked.

And money was wasted and made with such reckless abandon that three of the greatest names in neuroscience quit the project on sheer principal. However, countless others were more than willing to exchange principle for salaries so sky high only corrupt dollars could have bankrolled them. The empty positions were filled within days.

Because, in the end, it all came down to morals, and those scientists (or businessmen, or hacks, or journalists) willing to push the boundaries farthest were the ones rewarded with results. Still, there was no guarantee that these results would be positive, or even conclusive, which meant that benefits from any lapse in legal experimentation would be solely financial. For too many, that was enough, and the spirit of good, old fashioned exploitation would continue (to the public eye) until the summer after the Rising. That was when a pair of whistle blowers started doling out classified information via circuitous, back alley web pages – ones with enough pop-up adds and flashing links to keep the bosses at Halperin and Weston ignorant to the fact that their trade secrets were being quietly published and distributed to every teenager with an adventurous internet history.

Soon, the new intel began to saturate headlines. Every night, another scandal:

**"Biting back: H &W revokes ‘infection on contact’ claims, antidote scheme prompts class action.”**

**“They won’t let me see him: local woman heads up suit against H &W, NHS, claims she was denied right to family visitation.”**

**“‘We’re demanding transparency, not a shutdown’: councilwoman Aasha Chaudhari confronts H &W after pictures of sister (deceased – 2009) surface online, claims evidence of violence, maltreatment.”**

**“The search for a cure: what’s going wrong, and how it’s affecting your healthcare costs.”**

**“Man leads protests outside H &W Human Resources: ‘Corporate funding killed my husband.’”**

Halperin and Westons' business ethics became a national talking point, with new falsehoods springing up as quickly as the old could be disproved, and picketers lining the facility gates from early morning until nightfall. Police stepped in; press conferences were called, pay offs arranged; a cure was rushed into production. 

It seemed, then, that the company had abandoned all pretense. High profile malpractice charges fell off of the docket – after all, the courtrooms would be flooded with new clientele, wouldn’t they? Some of these _people_ had been thieves, and thugs, and murderers, while others would come simply to demand worker’s comp: lives were back, limbs weren’t.

Meanwhile, Halperin and Weston would fade to a divisive footnote – corporate hero to one, money hungry sellout to another, and blatant public danger to the (quite vocal, quite sizable) majority.

It was the sort of invisibility that came with seamlessly incorporating the one’s brand into the market, with printing one’s name on a bottle, on an entire _monopoly_ , that allowed them to do things like this. 

“Dyer, Amy,” Nina snapped at the small pack of interns huddled, wide-eyed, white-coated, and blotchy, behind the lab table. None of the four could have been older than twenty – must be university students, then, shadowing for a few weeks. Jesus Christ, having Ollie around was commotion enough without a herd of kids tramping around, sticking gum to the underside of microscopes . . . but if taking on graduate projects like these bolstered public trust . . . ah, well.

Nina took the edge off her voice, brightened it with a fake smile. “Dyer, Amy. That’s the . . . name – you’ve got to write it in – ”

The youngest intern, a girl with delicate Korean features and sweat on her forehead, scrambled to pick up a clipboard from the edge of the table. She glanced up and down the sheet, back to the lab table, then to the sheet again, brows lifted in nervous horror.

“It’s just there, at the top,” Nina pointed emphatically over the table (over the body on that table.) “That little box there.” 

The girl fumbled, pushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear and humming, low and urgent. “Um . . .”

“At the very top of the page. You write the name there.” 

No response. Breathing apparatuses and scientific instrumentation buzzed absently as the students gathered, silent, around the clipboard. The children – and they really were children – paled under the harsh fluorescents until their skin was a shiny, sickly grey-green. Gestures were exchanged, one or two attempted to point the others in the right direction, but Nina saw that they were bleary-eyed, the lot of them. Shaking to the point of uselessness, with fluttering eyelids that lifted furtively to the corpse every now and again. 

Enough.

“Ollie!” Nina called. The students snapped their head up at the roughness in her voice. Ollie stumbled around the lab table, hauling the two bags of sampling equipment he’d just retrieved from the back room. 

He was breathing heavily under the weight, his head noticeably titled away from the body sprawled over the table top. “What?” he asked. 

“Could you go . . . ?,” Nina grappled for words, instead gesturing toward the students. “Erm, could you put them somewhere? Somewhere that’s . . . not here.” 

Ollie glanced over at the trembling visitors and appraised them with a furrowed brow. He scratched at the back of his head. “You guys are interns, though, right?” he wondered aloud and in their direction. “Aren’t you supposed to – ”

“ _Ollie._ ” Nina’s hands were tight on the man’s lapels as she tugged him close, then turned them around so their backs were to the interns. She could hear the kids’ whispers flitting from across the table, and she lowered her voice so only Ollie could hear, hissing into his ear. “These kids are squeamish as hell, okay? They’re gonna get in the way, and then they’re gonna go home and tell their parents about how they got in the way. Then, their parents are gonna call the fucking British Reserve and tell them we’re still experimenting on PDS cases, and that their kids _are getting in the way._ ” Nina pursed her lips for emphasis, released her partner’s lapels, and gave them a rough pat. “Hm?” 

“Oh.” Realization dawning, Ollie nodded slowly.

“Got it?”

“Yep. On it.” 

With that, Ollie ushered the four grateful interns out the back exit of Room 1116. The doors shut with the clank of old metal, juxtaposed and severe against the grade-A security system that sealed them from the outside world. 

Nina, meanwhile, readied the contents of the bags Ollie had shuttled out from the back room: syringe caps twisting in a spray of clear liquid, scalpels gleaming, a heart rate monitor calibrated and pulsing a gentle black ‘zero’ in the middle of its screen. 

Body collection, done. Initial set up, done. 

As soon as she made certain the facility phone line was secure, she called for the doctors. 

***

Kieren didn’t know what – if anything – he was supposed to do: one forty-five on a Tuesday morning, shifting from foot to foot in Simon’s front hall with some sort of goodbye to get over and done with. 

It might’ve been easier had he just gone home once they’d arrived back in Roarton, but he’d texted his mother, made his excuses ( **simon’s meeting up with family?? will be back late, sorry x** ), and legged it to the bungalow. He’d have liked to have said that it was for Simon’s benefit – emotional support, or what have you – and it was, in part. Mostly, though, it was for himself, and for an escape, and for leaving the house for the first time since the Amy’s funeral. It was for lazing about a living room that wasn’t his own, while Simon evaded any talk of the service – evaded talk of anything at all, really. Because the thing about Simon was that he listened when you spoke, and cliché as that sounded, it was so welcome. Kieren knew the man would speak up in his own time, and that it would be his time to hear soon, but for now Simon’s sadness sat deep within him, too long disguised by misplaced devotion and a sense of righteous purpose; Kieren’s sadness floated along his surface, still sailing around the inside of his skull because he’d had nothing and nowhere for it to sink into. Now, he fashioned it into words and let Simon's ear drown them as best it could. 

The rest of this day was for avoiding Sue and Steve Walker, who were bound to quiz him on every detail of the trip, though he’d have little to tell them outside of the fact that they hadn’t been robbed, or lynched, or drawn into some underground terror cell. Just stirred up a few parishoners, that was all. And it was even for sidestepping that inevitable conversation with Jem, the one where she would insist that Dr. Russo wasn’t right for her, the one where Kieren would counter that Dr. Russo might not be right for anyone, but he was the right _enough_. 

Today had been for Simon, tonight had been for himself, and now Kieren felt his phone buzz for the twelfth time that evening: his mother, he knew without checking, was worried. Understandably. 

So, now, he ticked through the broad spectrum of exit strategies, all of which blurred together, expanded, shouted at him as the pair made for the door. As Simon slumped forward to reach for the handle, there was a tiredness pulling at his face that Kieren hadn’t seen since the night after Amy’s service. The man had actually fallen asleep during a lull in conversation, that night, with his dress shoes still on and with Kieren still curled up at the opposite end of the sofa, more than a little shocked. It was as if he’d simply shut off in the face of some insurmountable adversity, and that was when Kieren understood why Simon had died with a needle in his vein. He had realized it then, saw the same inescapable fatigue returning now, and – 

Suddenly, he was chasing a warmth on the back of Simon’s tongue, seeking it out on the roof of his mouth, and along the backs of his teeth. If he concentrated, and slid his hands along either side of Simon’s face, and pulled him closer, he could feel that warmth spark in his head and in his stomach, just barely. But it was enough, because it was more than before, and, honestly, more than he’d ever had. So he sought whatever it was (their teeth clashing, his hand fumbling to the back of Simon’s neck) out single-mindedly, failing to notice that an arm had threaded around his lower back, pulling him in, or that Simon was even kissing him at all. He must have been, because when Kieren forced himself away from that warmth, back into his own head, Simon’s breath was harsh against his lips and a clipped sound started and finished in the back of his throat. He noticed Kieren’s withdrawal, mental so much as physical, and shifted his weight back, stumbling the slightest bit. And he smiled. 

“That’s – fine, then. That works,” Simon gave a deliberate nod. He was blinking rapidly and then not at all, looking off just over Kieren’s right shoulder – a reaction that, for some reason, twisted in the boy’s throat. 

“Yes, well . . . ,” Kieren began, pulling his arms away from Simon’s shoulders. His hands shook, and he forced them up into the sleeves off his hoodie to stave off any further embarrassment. “ . . . Yes. Sorry.” 

“Why?” The question was genuine, and it tilted Simon’s head almost imperceptibly to the side.

Kieren edged toward the door, shrugged with his fingers wrapped around the handle. They’d spent the whole day together, him and Simon, the majority of the past two weeks, actually. He’d seen the man snap in front of his entire extended family, seen him pull himself back together after everything that had happened since he’d moved to Roarton. Why was this so . . . “I don’t know?” Kieren admitted. 

“Alright. That’s alright, you can be sorry if you want.”

The boy’s heart sunk lower, his full attention now turned to the door knob, fingers drumming. 

“But I don’t have to be,” Simon continued, the frankness in his voice drawing Kieren’s attention and brightening his eyes. “You can have your little defense mechanisms; I can have mine. Really nothing to it, see?” 

His hand came up to the side of the boy’s face, allowing Kieren to lean in and close the distance to kiss him again, close-lipped and chaste. 

“For once in your life,” Simon pleaded, softly, with his hands moving along Kieren’s jaw as if he could smooth the tension there. “Do what you want and don't be ashamed of it.” 

Kieren felt himself nod without meaning to, heard himself give in. “Okay.” 

Three knocks on the door in quick succession, and he nearly jolted out of his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so late and probably underwhelming, sorry, sorry. I have no excuses, but I hope everyone had a great holiday! x


	8. Chapter 8

Simon sucked in a breath, swallowing back words he hadn’t planned and would never get the chance to. Slotted in the space they might’ve gone: “Who is it?”

A nauseous embarrassment began to churn in the pit of Kieren’s stomach, but not because of the interruption – he’d done his time listening for the rap of knuckles at his bedroom door, at Rick’s bedroom door, for sweaty, full-palm slaps against the plexiglass separating the main hallway and the counselling office at his school (he’d gone in once and the woman there had told him he was fine, should be fine, and good for him, and I’m proud of you, and for a few days he was drunk on her optimism.) Now, Kieren’s nerves flared at the way Simon had fixed his eyes to a space just above his head so as to avoid looking in his direction; Kieren concentrated on his boots and prayed that his parents hadn’t sent Jem out to the bungalow to collect him. He prayed they hadn’t sent _themselves_ out to the bungalow to collect him. _Oh, god._

But when Simon asked again, the answering voice was too low to match any of the Walkers', and the accent was different – even and sharp. “Depends on who all’s inside.” 

_Odd._

“S’just me,” Simon lied, with an ease that set Kieren’s teeth on edge. 

A smile colored the voice now, “I can see your fucking feet, Simon.” 

Surprise at having been identified by name flickered briefly over Simon’s face before he glanced down, realized that the light from the hallway must’ve caught him in his lie: their shadows bled beneath the door, casting the silhouettes of two pairs of legs onto the front stoop. Kieren was steady on his feet just long enough to hear Simon bite out a swear, then he felt a hand shove against the center of his chest, his balance swept out from under him as he was pushed out of sight. His back thudded against the wall and Simon winced: the bungalow’s siding was thin; whoever was outside, they would’ve heard. 

“Simon, wh – ”

Simon’s hand flew to his own mouth, eyes sharp and wide in silent reprimand. Kieren took the hint. A visitor during the afternoon was rare, he knew, seeing as people didn’t come around here, and even when they did they didn’t stay. He’d have liked to put it down to the chain link or the cold, but he knew it was because of Simon. Amy, before him. 

A visitor in the afternoon was rare; a visitor at 2 A.M. was dangerous. 

Especially one who refused to give his name. 

Simon rifled the flipbook of his pre-rising memories as best he could, trying to attach a face to the voice, but the pages kept catching – gummed by stale chemicals or the gloomy sting of adolescence or self-imposed amnesia (her blood on the floor, his hands in the blood . . . but he’d forgotten all about that. Honestly.) For a moment, he wondered if it be enough to simply ask the man to leave, to come back tomorrow or the next day. As soon as that thought came, though, it was abandoned. No one pitches up on a doorstep at this time of night if they aren’t absolutely sure of an audience, and if the business lilt to his voice was anything to go by, their visitor wasn’t going to leave without getting one.

Simon made up his mind, pursed his lips, and turned to explain. “Look, I’m just gonna – ” He gestured toward the door, guilt lidding his eyes. 

“Don’t – ” Kieren warned in a harsh whisper. 

“Literally two seconds. Give me two seconds.”

“Do _not_ – Simon!” 

“Sorry.” He creaked the door open until it was just wide enough to slip his body through, and it rattled on its hinges behind him. Kieren’s fist fell muffled against the window pane.

***

Jem Walker couldn’t sleep, which wasn’t a particularly earth-shattering in and of itself. Three weeks ago, her mother had brought home a small tube of pills, offering it with forced nonchalance as she ferried in the rest of the groceries, arms slung over with plastic bags. 

“Don’t, like, teenage drug addicts take Ambien?” Jem asked with the vial in one hand, the other notched at her hip. The bottle rattled as she turned it over to examine the label. “I don’t want to be a teenage drug addict. Mum, you shouldn’t want me to be a teenage drug addict.”

“You said you were having trouble sleeping,” Sue heaved the last of the grocery bags onto the counter. Her voice was airy, but underlined with a seriousness that Jem’s lacked. 

“I am.”

“So try those out. Can’t hurt, can they? Your dad used to take them.” 

“I’ve always wanted to be _exactly_ like dad. Thanks, mum. Maybe I’ll literally _become_ him, and then where will we be?”

“Jem – ”

“Won’t be able to tell us apart. That’ll be weird.”

“Please. Jem.” The desperation in her mother’s voice left Jem stony-faced and silent. Noting the pallor her daughter’s face, the lines there that shouldn’t have been, Sue continued, “I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t think it would help.” 

Jem glanced to the bottle again, puckered her lips and shrugged. She made sure to quiet the rattle as she took the stairs two at a time. 

It was the best sleep she’d gotten in months – the only side effect a sludgey sort of waking up, crust in the corners of her eyes. But the miracle drug had worn off within the week, and she thought it must be true what all the websites said, that her body was fighting against her, that it was a chemical thing beyond her control. Much as she hated the insomnia, it was nice to believe, for once. 

That being said, it had still been a shit day, and Kieren still hadn’t texted her back. Not that it was his job to keep tabs on her, or anything. Not that she even really cared. Or needed someone to care. Or anything. 

She pushed the covers down and rolled onto her stomach, reaching for her phone. Cold, blue light cast an electric glow on her face and ceiling, but her inbox was as empty as it had been this afternoon. Jem groaned, tossing her phone onto the ground and wrapped the covers around herself again. Not that she even really cared. Or anything.

***

Simon remembered him on sight. Wrapped to the chin in a tarp black jacket, the man was no taller, no thinner, and no older than he had been ten years ago. His jaw was wide as before, almost dissolving into the skin of his neck, but now it was milk white and speckled with chalk dry spots. A large, black vein threaded along his temple. The visitor was of average build and average height, yet Simon was gripped by a near primal urge to run. Whether this urge told him to run toward or away, he didn’t know, but the connection was instant, and jarring, and:

_Shit._ Head reeling, he turned back to towards the bungalow door on instinct, remembered Kieren standing just inside the threshold and turned back. Something that wasn’t bravery welled up within him and he felt himself surge forward, hands fisting into tarp. There was a gritty crunch as the man dug his heels into the earth, straining against Simon’s grip on his collar, but he wasn’t the afraid, Simon knew. This man wasn’t, couldn’t be scared of him. He was resisting for the sake of resistance: half-heartedly and with a smile. 

Simon pulled the man in close, close enough to smell the city and 3 AM hits in yellow hotel rooms they hadn’t paid for and five _miserable_ years on him. “I have _not_ had a good day, alright?” he steadied his voice as best he could. “I haven’t. Now is not the time to talk to me.”

“Well, now is all I’ve got, and it’s all you’ve got, so listen.”

Simon almost gave in to the temptation to shake him, then imagined how childish that would look and how ineffectual it would be. How good it would feel . . . and for some reason, his mind darted back to Kieren, who was probably pressed right up against the door, probably furious with him for doing something so stupid. _One thing at a time._

“No, _you_ listen,” Simon leered. “I want you to walk down that street, and I want you to keep walking for fifteen minutes. After that, turn around and come back. Just let me get rid of him, then you can tell me what the hell it is you want.”

“I’m not going to do that, Simon.” The man said, attempting one last struggle against the grip on at his throat. 

“You are. You are, and if you touch him, or follow him, or remember his face, I will personally see to it that you’re sent back as a noncompliant.”

“Playing politics there, aren’t you? Good old days, we all used to threaten to kill each other.”

“That’s harder now."

“Somebody tried.”

“Somebody _did_ ,” Simon spit. The man’s face contorted as he swallowed down a knot in his throat. He wasn’t wearing cover-up, and Simon imagined his face must be burning, that he must have wanted to pick off flakes of his skin until the pale was gone and there was only black blood and bone. He must have wanted that, because which of them hadn’t? Which of them didn’t? _This_ was playing politics, and Simon would have to remember to be disgusted at himself later. But there was a long time between now and then. He uncurled his fists. 

“Fifteen minutes. Start now.” 

The man pulled at his coat violently, indignation flashing across his face before he finally turned away. His walk was slow and deliberate, but Simon made sure he had disappeared into the shadows at the end of the street before ducking back into the bungalow. Kieren was waiting with a grimace, his hand, which had still been resting on the window pane, darted back to his side. Simon clocked the slight tremble, but didn’t have time to ask or care. 

“Who was he? What did he want?” Kieren demanded. 

“Doesn’t matter. Get this on.” Simon grabbed the boy’s coat off the hanger on the second try, tossing the first -- one of Amy’s old petticoats -- to the ground, and waited for Kieren to present his arms. 

Eventually, Kieren relented and let Simon fumble the jacket onto him. “Um, sorry, it does matter, and I – wait, what are you doing? Wait.”

“You’ve gotta go,” said Simon, maneuvering Kieren towards the door. 

“What? Wait, Simon – ”

“Call me when you get home. Don’t forget.”

“Why are you – ” Kieren struggled against the hand on his back, but Simon had already forced him halfway out onto the stoop. 

“Don’t forget.”

“I won’t. But – ”

For the second time that night, the door slammed between them. Kieren’s shadow hovered behind the curtains for a few seconds, mumbling protests in the shape of Simon’s name, before spinning on its heel and hefting down onto the sidewalk. It imagined that the night would be cold, if it could feel, and that a great injustice had just been committed here. It stopped in its tracks, turned.

“Not everything has to be a secret, you know,” said the shadow -- an afterthought shouted from just beyond the front yard. “You _can_ actually tell me things. If you want.” 

_Silence_. Simon didn’t trust himself to respond, and knew that if he did, he’d open the door and let the shadow back in and everything would go to hell from that point forward. 

Then, the same voice, softer: “Okay, goodnight.”

Three, four, five minutes passed. When Simon was sure that the shadow was well on its way home, he poked his head out into the darkness and glanced around, eyes catching on plants large enough to conceal, on gateposts, any discernible hiding place.

“Kieren, if you’re out here, don’t be,” he warned. But there was no response, and he hated himself for being the smallest bit disappointed.


	9. Chapter 9

**8 UNREAD MESSAGES**

This is what his nightmares were made of these days, not Simon alone on the doorstep with some stranger (though he was still angry about that, regardless of how noble Simon’s intention), not sepia-tint visions of Norfolk. There were no doctors standing over him with needles poised, and he rarely found himself back in the cave, watching his own blood fill cracks in the stone. Even Rick Macy came to him less frequently and, when he did, there was no knife; his eyes had sparks in them. No, this was what scared him now: pixels on a screen, little white numbers climbing and climbing and climbing. 

**Jem**  
**7:28 PM**  
**when are u getting back? approximately?? can we talk?**

**Jem**  
**8:01 PM**  
**kieren.**

**Jem**  
**8:12 PM**  
**are you serious? turn your phone on.**

**Jem**  
**12:47 PM**  
**turn your phone on!! what do you even have one for??**

**Jem**  
**12:53**  
**okay**

Kieren spared a glance up from his screen to give the road another quick once over, finding all as it had been a moment ago -- dark windows and an autumn wind too bright, too early in the morning. The last ten minutes had seen his path home, usually so routine, warped by unease, bristles on the back of his neck, and a network of nameless, faceless men holding their breath behind lampposts. These were the products of 2 AM eyes that stung when they shouldn’t. Just now, those eyes could just make out the grey, cold-haze speck of a sunrise far off in the horizon; Jem would be asleep or pretending, and how strange it was that imagined stares and ghosts filling the spaces left by footsteps could be so easily forgotten in the face of a little reality. New nightmares. 

_Calm down or you won’t make it home._

He left the last four messages unread, exchanging one brand of fear for another. 

***

_The only light comes from behind the bathroom mirror. It’s a sick, florescent green and he can taste it. His reflection has the good grace to look concerned at that, and as he watches the face in the mirror lick around its gums, the lightbulbs buzz, their filaments sputtering down to the quick. He tastes that sound, too. He thinks he should find that strange, then forgets why; thinks about the pill under his tongue instead. Thinks that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea – all of this, what he does all day and can’t stop doing. Thinks he’d like someone to press their hands all the way down his back. Thinks his mother would be disappointed at the way his cheeks have sallowed, at the way he might’ve hit someone the other day (though there’s a bruise purpling just above his hip, so maybe it was the other way around.) Long story short, it’s all very confusing and he’s not completely sure of where he is, or how many people are packed into the hotel room with him, but he **thinks** and he’s alive and he can taste the light and sound._

_There is a knock on the door – an intrusion that jolts Simon out of his stupor, his reflection stumbling slightly. He puts his hand to the mirror to steady it, then --_

_“You escaped pretty quickly back there,” says a man’s voice. This man is, for now, just a dark figure reflected in the corner of the mirror, but Simon takes note, attempts to turn around, and finds himself falling. He’s shedding his high in little pieces, like a second skin gone. He feels raw._

_“Too many people,” he manages._

_“What? Ten?”_

_“That’s too many.”_

_The man’s smile is one of amused disagreement. “Sure,” he says, like a compromise. Hands in his pockets, he walks closer and it’s obvious from the slump of his neck and shoulders that he’s shrinking himself down, trying to appear as small as possible. There’s a wariness to his posture that suggests he’s waiting for Simon to lash out._

_Simon’s only just finished reassuring himself that he would never do something so reckless (without good reason), when the man continues: “Bad trip?”_

_That stings a bit, which is stupid, Simon knows, but to his credit he’s managed to avoid chewing away at the inside of his own mouth for over an hour now and most of the junkies he knows couldn’t have done that. Plus, he’s still got the good majority of his wits about him – or he assumes he does. He can open and close his mouth no problem, even if he doesn’t completely understand the words he’s forming. Those words are hard to taste when the light is clinging to his gums and staling by the minute, like a bad cigarette. No, Simon rides out his doses well. That’s the only thing he has to be proud of, and he’s fucked if he lets someone take that away from him. He wants to be angry, wants to argue with this man, who is close enough now that Simon can tell he’s older than everyone here by at least ten years. Fighting back, however, would mean proving the man right when he’s **not**. Simon has had bad trips before; this isn’t one. _

_To be honest, this feels worse, because it’s a coward’s escape from the crowds and the people and the mindlessness outside – an escape from everything he’d come here for in the first place. It’s counterproductive, really: embarrassing, and all the fault of one of the girls he noticed when they walked in._

_Fifteen minutes ago –_

_She stumbles over to him then, her face the same pukish white as her hospital scrubs, and Simon desperately wants to know what’s driven her here, to this too-loud, anonymous hotel room just off one of the main boulevards. If it was a bad day that brought her in, it’s only getting worse. She’s busy bemoaning some side effect of the E she’s taken (“I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my own legs. I can’t feel my legs. Please, they don’t know where I am”) when suddenly her hands are clawing around to Simon’s back and her legs are buckling until her face is pressed hard into his ribs. Whether it’s down to the pills or to the fact that she looks so damn lost, this is the most Simon has ever wanted to kiss a girl in his life and he feels unspeakably guilty for it. Some small, sober corner of his brain wishes he’d waited until later to take what they’d given him. He and this girl might’ve been friends. He might’ve walked her back to her parent’s house and made excuses. After all, he's surprisingly adept with people when he isn’t high – they might’ve invited him inside. Instead, the girl is heaving out sobs and all he can think about is the feel of another person against him. The angle is awkward, though, and his last few scraps of rational thought are spent imagining how terrible they’d both feel come morning._

_“You’ll be okay,” he offers, because he can’t think of much else to say. That seems like enough -- that must be enough, right? -- so he pries her arms from around his chest and holds her by the shoulders instead. Her eyes are red and wet, and Simon can feel the spots where her tears have soaked through his shirt._

_He’s steering her towards the door now, hands on her shoulders. “You’re alright.”_

_“I’m in a fucking graduate program,” she slurs. Her legs wobble dangerously, but she makes it across the floor and over the threshold of the hotel room._

_“That’s great,” says Simon, meaning it. “Yeah, that’s a good thing. Keep doing that.”_

_And as fast as he tries to slam the door, he’s unable to spare himself the contortion of her face: wide-eyed, absolute terror. It drives him into the bathroom and doubles him over the sink. Now he’s still here, wishing it was just a bad trip, but he knows better._

_“I can get you out of here, if that’s what you want,” the man says. Even high, Simon knows it’s a false proposition. No one pulls you off the street for something like this, offers you bad alcohol and thoroughly decent ecstasy expecting you to leave. Simon has known that from the moment he arrived, and the damp stains the girl left on his shirt have convinced him to stop caring altogether._

_“No. No, I want to stay.”_

_Another smile purses the man’s lips, anticipated this time. “Good.”_

_The thrum of music kicks up outside the bathroom – thick vibrations that worm their way up through Simon’s chest and into his throat before he’s gagging over the sink. The last tastes of light and sound are just leaving his body when the man speaks._

_“You’re alright.”_

Simon remembered. Repeated that phrase to himself now in the quiet of the front hallway. The words sounded wrong in his mouth, but he was leaning against the wall when the phone rang, once, twice, three times, and he couldn’t think of anything else to say. 

He let the call go to message.


End file.
